Happy 6th Birthday Lily!

Happy birthday to our sweet Lily!  I cannot believe we have a six year old!  Lily is such a blessing to our family.  We are so proud of the young lady she is becoming.  She is so smart and creative; we love what a diligent worker she is, whether she is practicing her handwriting, learning Bible verses or playing soccer.  She gives her best.  She is so sweet to her little sister and friends.  She is such a precious girl, and Ryan and I are so proud to be her parents.

 

I made cupcakes, and Bama and the girls frosted and decorated them.

 Thursday was Lily's actual birthday, so I took the cupcakes to her school at lunchtime.  We had enough to share with both kindergarten classes which made Lily (and the other kids) happy.  Towards the end of lunch, all the kids in the lunchroom sang happy birthday to her; she said this embarrassed her a little.

 On Thursday evening, Lily opened her presents from us (her very first Barbie doll where she pretends to be a teacher), Liz (I Spy game and great new art supplies) and David and Jan (new outfits and accessories for her American Girl, McKenna).  Lily was excited to receive each of these presents.

 As always, the birthday girl gets to pick the restaurant, and Lily picked Chuck E Cheese.  So off we went for pizza, bread sticks and games!

It was a fun evening to celebrate our sweetheart!

Fair Fun

The North Georgia State Fair is in town right now.  I have so many great memories of the fair.  Most of them center around going many times as a child with my Mama Lottie and Pawpaw.  I also love the time Ryan and I went with our friends, the Rohans, and saw the Josh Turner concert; Lily was born just three days after, so I have always thought this was our last night out before our world was turned upside down (in a great way!).  We weren't able to make it to the fair last year, so I was excited that the girls, Liz and I were able to go after church yesterday.  It was a beautiful day; perfect for the fair!

 

The doors open at 12:30 on Sunday, so we pretty much headed straight back to the food area; we were hungry!  The girls and I enjoyed corn dogs and fresh-squeezed lemonade.  Then, I had to have a funnel cake; you can't have a fair without funnel cake, right?!  Turns out, the girls didn't really like it...oh well, more for Liz and me.

 After lunch, we started walking around, and Mia wanted to do the trampoline so badly.  She had been talking about it all over lunch, and she was determined.  So once we decided she actually is big enough, they strapped her in and she started bouncing.  She loved it!

 Since the girls didn't really like the funnel cake, I caved and bought them shave ice.  Something about the fair makes me feel like I need junk food.  Anyways, here's Mia enjoying her tri-flavor concoction.

 Lily was pretty excited about hers too.

 We headed to the animal area of the fair next.  Mia really wanted to ride a pony, though Lily would have nothing to do with it.  So, I loaded Mia up on a pony named Grits.  I walked next to her for two rounds and then asked if she wanted to go by herself so I could take a picture; she said that was fine.

 Such a big girl!

 After the pony ride, we headed in the tents to see more animals.  Cows (including a baby who had been born the day before), llamas, pigs, sheep, oh my...they were everywhere.  Liz had the great idea to buy an ice cream cone of food; Mia couldn't wait to start feeding all the animals!  She loved having them eat right out of her hand.

 Lily didn't want to feed any of the animals, but she didn't hesitate to pet the sweet little bunnies.

 By this point, the girls were getting tired and needed to rest a little.  I had decided not to even bother with the game area this time, so we started to head back out.  Mia asked to ride the pony again, and Lily said she wanted to ride one too.  So we made another stop by the ponies.  Lily saddled up on Pepper while Mia jumped on Hot Dog.  They both had fun on their ride.

What a fun afternoon!

Lily's Note

Love this sweet note Lily wrote for Ryan since he is in Alaska right now.  I sent it to him via text message so he could respond.  How sweet is she?

Update on Mia and Soccer

The first two weeks of soccer have been interesting for Mia.  She loved practicing and really did very well; she has great control of the ball and kicks well.  However, she completely froze up when it was game time.  She kept saying she didn't like playing in games, but the moment they were over, she totally brightened up again.  Last Wednesday, she came with me to Lily's practice.  At the end, the coach held a scrimmage between the kids' team and the adults. Mia came out with me, and held my hand for a few minutes as we ran around after the ball.  After a few minutes, she let go of my hand and was off.  She had an absolute blast!  Afterwards, I asked "Mia, do you know what you just did?" and she said "No, what?"  I replied "You just played in a soccer game!"  Her eyes got so big and you could see the realization come together.  She got so excited and said "I did!  I did play in a soccer game!"  Lily was so sweet to encourage her too and tell her how great she did playing.  As we were leaving, I said "Mia, do you think you'll play with the Sharks in the game on Saturday?" and she very enthusiastically replied "Yes!"  I told her if she would try playing, we would go get ice cream after the game.  That's right...I went to all out bribery.  She was thrilled.

Saturday morning came.  I was cautiously optimistic as she was still saying how excited she was to play and go get ice cream.  Sure enough, once they said it was time to play, she ran out and played her little heart out.  It was so much fun to watch!  She actually scored five goals and one own goal during the game (not that anyone keeps score...).  Lily again was so sweet to encourage her and cheer for her.  I was so proud of both of my girls!

Here's Mia dribbling the ball.

 Enjoying the promised ice cream (technically frozen yogurt).  I let her pick everything today; she chose vanilla yogurt with sour gummy worms, chocolate chips, mandarin oranges and strawberries.  She then proceeded to eat every bite and turn the bowl up to drink every last melted sip.

Later, she asked "when is my next game?"  When I told her the game was next Friday but she has practice on Monday, she replied "Ahhh man!  I don't want to practice, I want to play a game!"  What a switch!  Thankfully, practice went very well tonight.  It is so much fun to watch both the girls play hard and do their best!

Mia's Dessert

The girls asked Thursday night what we were having for dessert after dinner, and I told them we weren't having dessert that evening.  Mia replied "Ahhhh!  I wanted more sweet peas for dessert!"  How do you say no to that?  So, she sat down and chowed down on more sweet peas.  For the record, she didn't eat all of these, but she had a good serving!

Precious Mia

I love, love, love our precious Mia.  There are lots of reasons why, but this is the newest one.  Lily has been learning Psalm 23 for her class.  We have been practicing a lot, and Mia has been picking up on it.  Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8X-49I5Lc&feature=youtu.be) is a video of our sweet little one "reading" her Bible and saying the first part of Psalm 23 that she has learned.  Enjoy!

Zoo Fun

We decided to have a little family fun day on Sunday, so we headed to the zoo since we haven't been there in awhile.  I only put family pictures in here; no animal pictures this time! 

 

The girls were quite excited!

 Ryan and Mia as meerkats.

 Meerkats Ryan and Lily.

 Taking a Dippin' Dots break.  The girls had never had these before, and they loved them!

 Hanging with the giraffes.

 They always like the Willie B statue.

 Ryan surprised the girls and let them make pressed pennies; they were thrilled with their special treat!  Lily put an otter on hers while Mia put a lion.  They have treasured these over the last few days!

 Love this picture of two of my favorite people.

Love making fun memories together!



Random Things

A few random things recently:

Love the look on Mia's face in this Chuck E Cheese picture.  Doesn't she look precious?

 Sweet Lily.

 Lily and Ryan had a date the other night, and they ended up at Mellow Mushroom after going to see Finding Nemo in 3D.  While waiting on their food, Lily drew this sweet picture of "Lily and her Daddy."  I couldn't get this to turn sideways for some reason.

 She also drew this portrait of me at some point and wrote a little note saying "I love you."

 Ryan and I love watching the Braves.  Unfortunately, this is Chipper Jones' last season; we will be sad to see him go!  Ryan really wanted to see him play one last time, so for his birthday, I bought 4 good tickets just up from 3rd base for Sunday's game.  It was great to be so close to the action and to watch Chipper from here.

 Brian and Jill went to the game with us so that was lots of fun.

 Saturday night was fantastic!  Ryan and I went to Lakewood for the Brad Paisley concert.  He is my favorite musician, so I couldn't wait!  We had some great seats on the right side in the second section of seats.  Scotty McCreery from American Idol was the first opening act, and he did a good job.  Next up was The Band Perry who were great; I really enjoy their music, so it was fun to see them.  Finally, Brad came out.  The picture below is the opening.  He puts on a great show!  This was such a fun evening!

The Many Faces of Lily

Lily played on my phone the other day.  After getting it back, I realized she had been experimenting with the reverse camera that let her see her face as she took the picture.  Here, for your enjoyment, are the many faces of Lily.

 

This girl makes me laugh!

Soccer Stars

We decided the girls would give soccer a try this year.  They enjoyed watching it on tv, Ryan used to play it, we wanted them to try a team sport, it's great exercise, and we thought they would really like it.  They both play with the Smyrna Soccer Club.  Lily's U6 team is called the Galaxy while Mia's U4 team is the Sharks.

 

They each had their first game last Saturday.  Here they are, ready to go!

 Mia checking everything out before the game started.

 Warming up.  She seemed very excited and ready to play.

 Mia loved practicing and warming up.  However, as soon as they said "let's play," she completely froze up.  She refused to walk onto the field.  Ryan and I were baffled.  Mia is normally a very outgoing little girl who loves to run, jump and play.  We couldn't believe it.  However, she wasn't the only one.  Apparently, this is a very intimidating situation for the 3 and 4 year old set.  Several players on both teams refused to play or were crying.  As soon as the coach said the game was over, she perked up and was excited to get her snack.  At practice this week, she had a blast, but come game day again on Saturday, she froze.  This time she stayed on the field, but she stuck her fingers in her mouth and refused to move.  I'll be honest, it was really frustrating for us to watch!  This simply isn't Mia, and we don't get it.  She says she loves to practice (and that's evident to watch) but she doesn't like a game; she can't explain why though.  We'll keep trying.  Maybe sometime in the next 8 weeks, she'll give it a try during game time!

 

After Mia's game, we ate a little snack and then it was Lily's turn.  Here she is warming up.

 The coach with some of the players before the game.

 Lily and the herd (she's the second gold jersey from the left) running after the ball.  Lily seems to really enjoy playing soccer though after 30 minutes of running and up down (with water breaks of course), she is exhausted!  She does great during practice; she has great control of the ball and kicks really well.  She's not very aggressive during the games though, so she doesn't get to kick it a lot then.  She really seems to like it though, so we're giving her lots of encouragement throughout the game and practice.  It's really pretty fun to watch!

Just before Lily's game the first week, it started to rain a little bit.  They decided to keep playing which was fine.  Towards the end though, the sky opened up and it POURED down rain.  I can't remember ever being that wet!  The girls and I stood in the rain while Ryan went to get the car for us.  There was nothing to do but laugh at this point.  At one point Lily said "I guess we don't have to go back to White Water now!"  We got in the car and the girls literally poured water out of their cleats; it was crazy.  Hopefully that won't happen again, but we'll see what the rest of the season holds!

California, Part 7 - Sausalito

The last three nights of our trip were spent in beautiful Sausalito.  This town sits on the bay across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Fransisco.  We stayed at Casa Madrona, and this was the view from our room.  We had beautiful weather again (honestly, it was perfect the entire trip), and we enjoyed quite a bit of relaxing in our room, looking at this view or watching college football which started this weekend.

 Sausalito has lots of neat places to visit too, but this is probably our favorite place.  It's simply called "Hamburgers."  They use this huge rotating grill to cook them, and it's just kind of neat to watch.

 This is how they turn out.  YUM!

While we certainly loved our burgers here, our favorite meal was definitely North Beach Italian Restaurant.  The four of us drove over and met up with some family that has recently moved to San Fransisco.  It was great to catch up with Lynn and Ron, learn about their cross-country drive with Hula Girl and share a wonderful meal together.  Ryan and I both ordered the spaghetti carbonara, and it was the best we've ever had (even better than what we enjoyed in Italy and Scotland...I know that Scotland sounds weird, but seriously, this one restaurant at the end of the Royal Mile has amazing carbonara).  We will certainly visit this restaurant again next time we're out west!

 Walking along the sidewalks of Sausalito leads to a great view of San Fransisco.

 We also saw this full moon over the bay our last night.  Gorgeous.

 One morning, Ryan and I drove about 15 minutes to Muir Woods, a local redwood forest.  It was really cool to visit!  We did about a 1.5 mile hike and thoroughly enjoyed our time.  What a great morning.  Here's a picture of us inside one of the trees.  Amazingly enough, we're told these redwoods aren't even as big as some of the ones further north!

 Crane your neck to see the tops!

 A little creek was flowing through too.  One sign noted though that the creek is currently at its low point, but in the spring, it rises a lot and is filled with fish.

 Of course, you can't make it to the San Fransisco area and not go visit the Golden Gate Bridge.  We loved the panoramic view from the marina near the bridge.

 There is a great mountain to drive up to see the bridge.  This is from the first stopping point, and we had some great views.  As we drove further up, fog actually rolled in and you couldn't see the whole bridge anymore.

 Smile, you're in California!

Finally, on Sunday late morning, we started the journey home.  What a fantastic time!  This was definitely a trip from our travel bucket list, and it was even better than we imagined.  We had such a great time making wonderful memories together and with Mom and Dad.  California is such a beautiful state with so many fun things to do, delicious food to eat and lovely places to stay.  I can't wait to go back!